The Rationalist

This provocative study of 18th-century sexual mores begins with a powerful scene, as Silas Grange, an emotionally cold and scrupulous doctor in a small English town, amputates a patient's arm without the benefit of anesthesia. Grange, whose austere routine and absorption in Enlightenment philosophy have kept him a bachelor, is soon seduced by Mrs. Quill, a shrewd and elegant widow with a mysterious past. Quill convinces Grange of the sexual frustration of upper-class women, who are treated as decorative objects by their inattentive husbands, and enlists him to ``awaken'' various acquaintances purportedly trapped in static and unhappy marriages. When it dawns on Grange that his rationalist faith has played him false and that Quill is merely using him as a high-class gigolo, he suffers a breakdown. The story unfolds effectively, as Grange's amorous adventures are interspersed with the unsavory details of 18th-century medical procedures and with debates between Grange and his skeptical colleague, Dr. Harwood, a robust and hidebound doctor, who reveals to him that Quill was notorious in London as the madam of a brothel for decadent society women. This tale of sexual manners and duplicity is related in sedate, measured prose that evokes 18th-century attitudes about food, hygiene, social mores, fashion and sexual roles, while Collins ( Death of an Angel ) expertly controls a potent mix of sensuality and suspense. (Jan.)